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Political peril, scrambled loyalties for Congress as Obama hands it war powers it demanded on Syria

CORRECTION Obama Syri_LaMo.jpg

President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, makes a statement about the crisis in Syria in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013. Delaying what had appeared to be an imminent strike, Obama abruptly announced Saturday he will seek congressional approval before launching any military action meant to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress, abruptly handed exactly the war
powers many had demanded, grappled Saturday with whether to sign off on
President Barack Obama's plan to punish Syria for an alleged chemical
weapons attack.

Now with a stake in the nation's global credibility, lawmakers were
seeking more information about the possible consequences of striking a
region without knowing what would happen next.

The debate over what action, if any, Congress might approve is in its
infancy. But the first contours began emerging within hours of Obama's
announcement.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he doesn't believe Syria should go
unpunished for the Aug. 21 attack near Damascus. "But we need to
understand what the whole scope of consequences is," he said by
telephone. "What the president may perceive as limited ... won't stop
there."

Arguing for a strategy that seeks to end Syrian President Bashar
Assad's rule, Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina issued a joint statement saying that any operation should be
broader in scope than the "limited" scope Obama described.

"We cannot in good conscience support isolated military strikes in
Syria that are not part of an overall strategy that can change the
momentum on the battlefield, achieve the president's stated goal of
Assad's removal from power, and bring an end to this conflict, which is a
growing threat to our national security interests," the senators said.

"Anything short of this would be an inadequate response to the crimes
against humanity that Assad and his forces are committing. And it would
send the wrong signal to America's friends and allies, the Syrian
opposition, the Assad regime, Iran, and the world - all of whom are
watching closely what actions America will take," they said.

Lawmakers of both parties had, for days, demanded that Obama seek
congressional authorization under the War Powers Act. Until Saturday,
the president showed no willingness to do so and the military strike
appeared imminent. Then, from the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he
would strike Syria in a limited way and without boots on the ground.
But, he added, he would seek congressional approval first.

"All of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can
only be accomplished with a vote," Obama said. "And in doing so, I ask
you, members of Congress, to consider that some things are more
important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment."

With that, Obama dropped the question of Syria, the nation's
credibility and the balance of government power in the very laps of
lawmakers who had complained about his go-it-alone-style -- but were
less clear about how they would want to deal with a horrific chemical
attack that the administration said killed 1,429 people, including 426
children. Other estimates of the death toll were in the hundreds.

There's little doubt that Obama as commander in chief could retaliate
against Syrian targets without approval from the American people or
their representatives in Congress. He did it two years ago in Libya, but
in that case, the U.S. led a NATO coalition.

Congress' constitutional power to declare war was refined and
expanded by the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires a president to
notify Congress within 48 hours of initiating military action and bars
U.S. armed forces for fighting for more than a maximum of 90 days
without congressional approval. President Richard Nixon vetoed that
bill, but Congress overrode the veto.

Even with that power, Congress hasn't formally declared war since World War II.

Every subsequent conflict involving U.S. forces, including military
conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, the Caribbean island of
Grenada, Kosovo and Libya were undeclared, even though in most cases
Congress did vote approval short of a war declaration -- sometimes after
the fact. The Korean War was fought under the auspices of the United
Nations, the one in Kosovo, by NATO.

With Syria, Israel's safety was a key concern. Dealing a blow to
Iranian-backed Syria could mean a retaliatory strike against a key ally
staunchly backed by many lawmakers, and some said that any president
would need the weight of Congress behind him in such a situation.

"The potential for escalation in this situation is so great that I
think it's essential that the president not be out there on his own,"
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said Saturday in an interview.

But that's a different question than whether to carry out such a
strike. Like Cornyn, Thornberry said he wanted to know what the goals
would be-- and the consequences. In town halls held over the recess, he
said, constituents asked him why what happened in Syria should matter to
them.

"The president has to convince us," Thornberry said.

What to do about Syria is a politically perilous question for
lawmakers, and one that has scrambled loyalties. Still uncomfortably
fresh is the memory of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's
justification -- since disproven -- that Saddam Hussein's government
possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Liberals who voted in October 2002 against giving Republican
President George W. Bush the broad authority to invade Iraq over weapons
of mass destruction are echoing Obama's push for punitive strikes
against Syria.

Republicans who in the past embraced Bush's military doctrine of
pre-emptive action -- and repeatedly rejected Democratic attempts to end
decade-plus conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have rhetorically
grabbed 1960s peace signs in warning against the implications of U.S.
intervention in the Mideast conflict.

If Obama intended to make the debate less about his leadership and
more about the policy, the move to seek authorization didn't work on
Rep. Peter King.

King, a New York Republican and a member of the House's intelligence
committee, suggested that the president was undermining the authorities
of future presidents and seeking a political shield for himself by going
through Congress.

"The president doesn't need 535 members of Congress to enforce his own red line," King said.